Who's watching over baby Jesus? GPS devices and hidden cameras being used to stop Nativity thieves in U.S.

When Baby Jesus disappeared last year from a Nativity scene in Florida, village officials didn't follow a star to locate him.

A GPS device mounted inside the life-size ceramic figurine led sheriff's deputies to a nearby apartment, where it was found face down on the carpet. An 18-year-old woman was arrested in the theft.

Giving up on old-fashioned padlocks and trust, a number of churches, synagogues, governments and ordinary citizens are turning to technology to protect holiday displays from pranks or prejudice.

Stolen: This year's Nativity display in Wellington Florida - last year Jesus was stolen from it and then tracked down by a GPS device inside

GPS (global positioning system) devices use satellite signals to determine geographic locations on land and at sea.

About 70 churches have jumped at a security company's offer of free use of GPS systems and hidden cameras this month to guard their mangers.

For two consecutive years, thieves made off with the baby Jesus figurine in Wellington, a well-off village of 60,000 in Palm Beach County, Florida. The ceramic original, donated by a local business, was made in Italy and worth about £1,000.

So last year, officials took a GPS unit normally used to track the application of mosquito spray and implanted it in the latest replacement figurine. After that one disappeared, sheriff's deputies quickly tracked it down.

Sensing opportunity in that kind of success story, New York-based BrickHouse Security is offering up to 200 religious institutions a free month's use of security cameras and LightningGPS products it distributes.

So far in 2008, baby Jesus has appeared in several police reports. At First United Methodist Church in Pennsylvania, a baby Jesus was stolen and replaced with a pumpkin.

In Arkansas, someone who absconded with a plastic baby Jesus from a public display last week also took the concrete block and chain that was supposed to act as a deterrent.